There is something primal, almost amniotic, about entering the dim space that makes up the first gallery of “Several Eternities in a Day: Form in the Age of Living Materials” at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles . Here, the walls thrum with a muffled sound reminiscent of waves crashing or a creature breathing. The air is heavy with petrichor. In this cave-like space, the past feels briefly palpable in the present. That soundscape is one of three compositions created for the exhibition by Raven Chacon . With speakers embedded into one wall, Study for Vertical Earth (2026) amplifies the otherwise sub-audible frequencies emanating beneath the earth’s surface. We register the raspy, low decibel recording as a vibration coursing through the room, through the body. Round the corner and the source of that perfumed scent comes courtesy mounds of loamy soil that line the perimeter and form a pathway from the mouth of the show into its depth.…